Mulch can be fantastic, but it takes an abundance of leaves and a little bit of work. Luckily, fall has arrived, and with it the red and yellow foliage scattering sidewalks provides the perfect compost recipe. But the leaves also clog up storm drains, degrade water quality in local streams and turn sidewalks into Slip ‘n Slides for unwary pedestrians.
The City of Eugene’s fall and winter leaf collection program, which kicked off last week, has helped clear the streets and storm water drains since the late 1960s, but the program’s motto encourages residents to take a more hands-on approach with the fall’s fallen debris – “rake, recycle and reuse” it.

But if you choose not to take the gardening approach, the city’s public works department is here to help with the clean up, and will begin leaf collection in the central Eugene area today. So for those living in the region north of West 18th Avenue and south of the Willamette River, but to the west of Agate Street, this means dump trucks and front-end loader tractors will be on your streets to pick up piles of leaves until Friday, Nov. 9. Still, other Eugene residents prefer to take matters into their own hands.
“The benefits (of mulching) are so incredible,” said Ryan Brey, a Down To Earth store employee and gardening aficionado. “Distributing it throughout the property suppresses weeds and adds organic matter to the soil … which builds a better soil composition.”
Brey offers two ways to make mulch out of the leaves in and around your yard. The first option is to rake them directly under shrubs or into a garden so they can decompose there. The other method is to gather them in a big pile to create “a leaf mold,” in which micro- and macro-organisms break down the leaves and turns them into “humus – the black goodness you associate with good soil,” Brey said.
Around late spring to early summer, the leaves should have turned into “humus,” which is then ready to be sprinkled around a yard or garden, he said.
The city requests that residents gather leafs into piles, and place them on the edge of streets for crews to collect. However, there are a number of safety warnings and disposal tips the city is asking residents to observe.
Crews collect the leaves each year with the goal of preventing street flooding caused by clogged gutters, catching basins and storm drains and protecting water quality by removing leaves that would otherwise decay in waterways.
“What it does is create isolated flooding in some streets and intersections that can create traffic problems for motorists and bicyclists,” said Eric Johnson, the surface operations manager for the city’s public works department.
Johnson acknowledges that the University area is unlike other regions in the city in that rows of cars pack the streets’ parking spots and don’t offer many places to leave the leaf piles for crews to pick up.
“We do our best to work around the (University) area, but it’s a difficult spot for us. Residents should try to condense their piles by sharing areas with neighbors so piles don’t take up a bunch of parking spots,” Johnson said. “It might mean dragging piles down the street where they can all be piled together … because we are not able to pick up leaf piles on the sidewalk or property, but only in the streets.”
Twice a year, collection crews hit each of the five sections that the city has been divided into to pick up leaf piles. The second round for central Eugene will be from Dec. 17 through Dec. 28. Residents living in southeast Eugene, in the area south of West 18th Avenue and east of Willamette Street, will first see collection crews in the week of Nov. 19 through Nov. 30, and they will return for round two from Jan. 14 to Jan. 18.
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